table of content
michael bierut: doesn’t believe in creativity
biography
achievements
works
other works
5
Michael Bierut Doesn’t Believe in Creativity.
“I have actually never said this out loud,” he said one morning while sitting in the main conference room at Pentagram’s New York City office. “It’s a private thought that I’ve had, and it’s actually sort of weird.” Here it goes:
I don’t believe in creativity.
It’s not that he doesn’t believe in it exactly, it’s just that he thinks creativity, in the way we often use the word, is kinda overrated. “There’s a finite amount of newness available at any one time, or maybe period,” he continues. “And you have to use it really deliberately.”
9
11
graduated: from University of Cincinna-
art directors:
ti’s College of Design Archi-
elected to the Art Directors
tecture, Art and Planning
Club Hall of Fame
born:
pentagram:
award:
in Cleveland Ohio.
became a partner with
the profession’s
the New York office of
highest honor, the AIGA Medal
published:
published:
published:
his book, “79 Short
A monograph on his work,
His collection of new
Essays on Design” was
“HOW TO” was published
essays, Now You See It,
published
by Harper Collins.
was published.
winner:
henry wolf resident:
in the Design Mind category
he was the Henry Wolf Resident
at the 2008 Cooper-Hewitt
in Graphic Design at the
National Design Awards.
American Academy in Rome. 13
Michael Bierut is one of the leading American
michael bierut: biography
graphic designers, design critic and educator. Born in 1957, Michael Bierut grew up in Cleveland Ohio. Graphic design was not as popular in those times that it would be promoted to young adults. His love of fine art, drawing and music helped him find only two books in the library on the subject. He finally decided to study graphic designing at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. He interned for another AIGA medalist, Chris Pullman, at a Boston public television station, WGBH. Upon graduation in 1980, he on to work for Vignelli Associates and in the span of a decade he became its Vice President. He had serious industry clout there but it also helped him form the key principle of his career. According to him, things that get designers really interested are in actuality not that significant.
15
In 1990, Bierut became a partner with the New York
michael bierut: biography
office of Pentagram. There he served clients such as Alliance for Downtown New York, Motorola, Alfred A. Knopf, the Walt Disney Company, the Toy Industry Association, Yale School of Architecture, Princeton University and New York University. Exhibition on the psychedelic era for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was one of the projects that Bierut managed. Moreover, he offered his services as a design consultant to United Airlines. Dwell sought his assistances on design book recommendations, while Fast Company required his valuable opinion on corporate branding. Morgan Library Museum recently sought his expertise on the development of a new signage and identity as it expanded. The New York Times building and Phillip Johnson’s Glass House hired him to create the environmental graphics for them. Besides redesigning The Atlantic magazine, he developed marketing strategies for William Jefferson Clinton Foundation.
17
19
1988 to 1990
1989
President emeritus of
Elected to the Alliance
AIGA National
Graphique Internationale
2003
2006
Art Directors Club
The profession’s highest
Hall of Fame
honor, AIGA Medal
2003
2006
Winner in Cooper-Hewitt
The Henry Wolf Resident in
National Design Awards.
Graphic Design in Rome.
Senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art.
A co-founder of the website Design
A lecturer in the practice of design and management at the Yale School of Management.
2007 Published a book: 79
Observer.
Short Essays on Design
2015
2017
Published a book:
Published His collection of
How To
new essays, Now You See It.
21
23
The launch of MohawkConnects.com is
mohawk: connect the dots
the customer’s first introduction to Mohawk’s vibrant new braand designed by Pentagram, Mohawk’s primary branding agency for more than two decades. Michael Bierut, who leads the Mohawk brand team at Pentagram said, “The logo is a monogram for the name Mohawk. It’s based on the letter M, but it’s also constructed to evoke the papermaking process and the printing process, both of which involve paper going around cylinders,” he said. The logo also speaks to the basic idea of connection, which is what Mohawk paper is designed for, “Whether it’s for a small book of photos featuring your niece and nephew or for a giant global corporation, it’s about communication,” said Bierut. -Press Release
The Mastercard logo has hardly changed at all since its
master card: rebranding
inception in 1968. A move from upright type to italics and slight variations on how those famous circles overlap have been the only tweaks made in almost half a century of service. Nevertheless, Mastercard was conscious that its current iteration, instated in 1996, was starting to look a little dated, and failed to serve the purposes of an increasingly digital brand. With the basic elements of Mastercard’s logo non-negotiable, the challenge was to inject it with some stroke of ingenuity. For this they turned to a design theory mainstay, Michel Eugène’s theory of simultaneous contrast as outlined in Joseph Albers’ Interaction of Color. “The way a color looks depends on what other colors are adjacent to it,” says Bierut. “What you learn is that you can create an illusion of gradation and dimensionality when in fact a shape is actually flat. We were so into that aspect of this mark: it’s three flat colors, but when you put them together the orange in the middle looks lighter when it’s touching the red and darker when it’s touching the yellow.
Conceived as a design manual, “How to” features 36 case studies that cover the creation of all types of work,
how to: book design
from identity, logos and branding to environmental graphics, packaging, books and websites, many times all in one project. Featured clients include the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Yale School of Architecture, the New York Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the New York Jets, among many others.Bierut frames each project as a specific challenge: “How to behave in church” covers his wide-ranging work for the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; “How to get where you want to be” describes the creation of the WalkNYC pedestrian wayfinding; and “How to design two dozen logos at once” looks at his identity for the MIT Media Lab. The work is detailed from start to finish, with insights into the creative process, his relationships with clients, and what he learned from the project. In planning the monograph, Bierut was inspired by classic design books like Armin Hofmann’s Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice and Milton Glaser’s Graphic Design.
rebranding: the poetry foundation
27
rebranding: nuts.com